* tiny but powerful *

God has totally been answering prayer with job and housing stuff lately. In fact, if I actually get this teaching job that's been my most promising lead so far, He's pretty hilarious and is probably laughing at me from up there.

Why, you ask?



Yeaahhh...so IF I get hired at the Emerson School, I would be able to WALK to work. As Melisa put it, "okay...probably a couple feet." Seriously, if there were some way to get through the back fence of the school playground, I'd be standing about 50 yards from our apartment complex. (The real entrance to the school is through the Elks Lodge parking lot on El Camino.)

I'm excited about the apartment that Melisa and I decided on! It's a place that we visited back during spring break, but kept in the back of our minds for a month or so while we explored options a little further north on the peninsula. Ultimately, after some discussion, we decided that we prefer to stay near Stanford. Reasons include: 1) our friends are all roughly around here, 2) it's a good middle ground for keeping my job options open, since she'll be working in SSF and I've been looking as far south as San Jose, and 3) (for me) I'd like to keep going to The River and get more involved with the church community, and too much further north than Stanford doesn't really make that feasible.

Once we had a better idea which area to focus on looking for housing options, Parksquare Apartments (which we refer to as the "Mary place," because Mary is the resident manager and she made a really good impression on us as a nice, competent, and friendly person) just really stood out. This was around the time I scheduled my first interview with the Emerson School, and Melisa pointed out to me (via the awesome Google satellite maps) that Parksquare literally shares backyards with the school. I couldn't believe it -- that's so crazy!

I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much yet about Emerson, but the process so far has been encouraging. I had an on-site interview there on Monday morning, which went pretty well. It was supposed to be with the Director, but his car broke down and he was unable to make it to school that day. Instead, I had a very easy-going "interview" with one of the Head Teachers whom they asked to fill in for the Director. Since she wasn't prepared to really interview me (they were scrambling to find her literally as I walked through the office door), she ended up answering more questions for me than I did for her.

I felt good about my conversation with her, and apparently that wasn't unfounded. The school called me back yesterday to schedule another interview for next week, promising that the Director would really be there this time. ;) Then I also got a personal email from him this morning -- he apologized for missing our earlier appointment, told me that the Head Teacher had given him "an enthusiastic report about [our] conversation," and wanted me to know that he'd asked his assistant to arrange another meeting as soon as possible. That's a good sign, right? :)

So I'll be going back for my second interview next Tuesday afternoon at 2:00! Thanks for all your prayers so far, and I'd appreciate if you could keep praying -- for the ability to represent myself well, for discernment (on both sides) about whether this is a good fit, and that I would trust in God's promise and power to work out His plan for me.

So the basic story is, I won't be working at Galileo this summer -- it took them a month and a half to decide that the conflict I notified them about ON MY APPLICATION (one of the training dates conflicts with graduation) disqualifies me from returning to staff this summer. This is after the camp director had already given me a verbal offer and then emailed to confirm that offer. I am obviously more than a little annoyed.

Galileo also runs the Tech Museum camps over the summer, so I had asked Gillian (during the same phone call in which she told me they can't hire me for Camp G) to check whether there are still openings for Assistant Instructors there. But if I can find another summer job that's at least comparable, I'd rather not work for Galileo again, out of principle. Any job is better than no job, though, of course.

Last night I wrote Gillian a hopefully-tactful "I'm unhappy with what happened" email, so I'm just trying to get over it now.

I know God has someplace else he wants me to be, even if there could have been a better way to get there if there weren't people involved making mistakes. I'm just antsy to know what I'll be doing... so if you could pray that I wouldn't be anxious and that I can rest in trusting God will provide something, I'd really appreciate it.

Poop on Galileo.

ARGH.

I am very unhappy with Galileo right now.

ARGHGHGH.

Another month flew by? Crazy.

Quick updates...

- I can dance again. Yay!

- This is my last quarter at Stanford - FINALLY! YAY!!! I know most people get sad about graduating (and I'll be sad about some things), but mostly I just CAN'T WAIT TO BE DONE.

- I am taking as few units as possible this quarter - most likely 8 or 9 (I petitioned for reduced tuition).

- Sadly, I only accomplished 7.5 of the 10 things I wanted to do over Spring Break. Boooo to the vertigo.

- I ordered a laptop, it came, it was defective, I spent many hours arguing with Gateway support, I demanded they pay shipping for the repair, they sent me a box, and I sent the laptop back. They were actually remarkably quick with the repair, because apparently it arrived in Texas this morning and it's already been put back into shipping to CA. Furthermore, I made a big enough fuss that they're refunding me an extra $100. Go me!

- My allergies are pretty bad these days... sniffle sniffle SNEEZE (x 3n or 5n, according to Justin and Brian).

- I'm hoping to take Elementary Orchestral Conducting this quarter. That would be cooool. But I'll need the prof's permission because I didn't take the preceding intro course. The prof wasn't back yet last week, so I'll find out this week (it only meets on Thursdays).

- If I get into the Conducting class, it conflicts with half of Richard's History of SD, so I'll only be able "audit" the dancing on Tuesdays.

- I decided to return to Camp Galileo this summer! I'll be back at the Hillsborough location, this time as Camp Director Assistant (or whatever they decide to call it - it's a newly created position).

Tonight is work work work...

I miss Chi-En. Another Wednesday and no girldate. :(